This is where I see the biggest problem. The vast majority of the inmates are innocent. I know this because we have released large quantities of them without any sort of charge.
And that above figure was from March 2006, 16 months ago. That number doesn't even reflect the total that were detained and released. That's just the number of inmates on that date. That is a very large number of people.
This is the dangerous road that we are traveling. Condoning torture to foil future plots that may or may not happen. One of the prices we pay for our freedom is having to live by the rule of law. This makes us less safe and we will always be faced with the possibility of another attack. Why? Because we live in a free society where the government can't keep it's citizens in line with total domination and fear. You cannot remove all threats to us while keeping the freedoms protected by the constitution. I except the fact that we are less safe because we can't just report our neighbor of suspicious activity and have the government come pick him up and torture information out of him. To say it's ok to torture those 50 to prevent an attack that didn't even happen yet (like the 9/11 attack) would be the same as saying it's ok to test cancer drugs on people even though it may kill them, because it may say the lives of thousands. We don't do this, not because we don't care for the thousands that will die from cancer, but because we don't live by the motto "it's okay to sacrifice a few to save the lives of many" There is a reason that we live with these rules, and I don't find comfort in pushing the lines further and further back.
